Issue 7: Bertrand Russell and 'The Problem of China'... 100 years on
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By Steven Irvin
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Founder, CEO & Editor of Week in China / ChinTell
Welcome to the seventh edition of my weekly newsletter. As the Editor of Week in China I read a lot of articles about China. Here I share with my LinkedIn connections a selection of links to some of the best articles we've published in Week in China in our most recent edition, but also point out articles from other sources I've found of interest.
To register for a complimentary subscription to Week in China use this personal invite from me.
This week I am bringing to your attention a book – a hidden gem – that was published 100 years ago by the Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell. It’s title The Problem of China is pithily visionary and his assessment of China was certainly well ahead of his time.
When he penned The Problem of China, his peers were far more concerned with the political consequences of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. The year 1922 saw Mussolini take power and trigger the rise of European Fascism. Against this backdrop, China would have looked backward and insignificant. But not to Russell. “All the world will be vitally affected by the development of Chinese affairs, which may prove a decisive factor, for good or evil, during the next two centuries,” he predicted.
In the last chapter the famed British philosopher and mathematician noted: “China, by her resources and her population, is capable of being the greatest Power in the world after the United States.”
Russell, who spent much of his early academic life in the quads of Trinity College, Cambridge, went to Beijing in 1920 where he lectured for a year. “When I went to China, I went to teach; but every day that I stayed I thought less of what I had to teach them and more of what I had to learn from them,” Russell wrote.
He immediately grasped key cultural differences. “The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment,” he wrote (in an era long before the advent of ESG). By comparison, he admired the fact the typical Chinese “wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible”.
He offers an example: “A European, in recommending a place of residence, will tell you that it has a good train service; the best quality he can conceive in any place is that it should be easy to get away from… A Chinese tells you that there is a palace built by an ancient emperor, and a retreat in a lake for scholars weary of the world, founded by a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty. It is this that strikes the Westerner as barbaric.”
This leads him to chide the patronising attitudes of many of his contemporaries: “There are Europeans one comes across who suffer under the delusion that China is not a civilised country. Such men have quite forgotten what constitutes civilisation.”
The author adds: “I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more practical than rubies. That is why the West regards them as uncivilised.”
On the country’s longevity as a continuous civilisation and on its governance he has this to say: “For many ages the government of China has been in the hands of literary sceptics, whose administration has been lacking in those qualities of energy and destructiveness which Western nations demand of their rulers. In fact, they have conformed very closely to the maxims of Zhuangzhi [a Taoist philosopher]. The result has been that the population has been happy except where civil war brought misery; that subject nations have been allowed autonomy; and that foreign nations have had no need to fear China, in spite of its immense population and resources.”
However, much as he admired China, Russell is forthright in pointing out its flaws too. The three worst qualities of the Chinese national character, he concludes, are avarice, callousness and cowardice. For the sake of money, “all but a few will be guilty of corruption”.
The Problem of China is full of prescient forecasts. For instance, he predicted: “I have no doubt that if the Chinese could get a stable government and sufficient funds, they would, within the next 30 years, begin to produce remarkable work in science.”
His prediction of a “30 years” timeframe is uncannily accurate. Remember that in 1978, a humble Deng Xiaoping visited Japan to learn its production methods; just over three decades later, the Chinese economy would be bigger than Japan’s.
Back in 1922, Russell’s greatest fear was that the China of the future would merge its society’s worst qualities with the worst aspects of capitalist ‘progress’ – i.e. denuding itself of its spiritual and cultural core in favour of a more efficient economy and more belligerent military. It’s worth reading in full his analysis of how he arrived at this conclusion (Japan is a key factor in his thinking).
I was given The Problem of China by a very erudite banker who has been in this region for decades. For those who want to read my lengthier article on the book it can be found in this Week in China article I wrote in 2011.
Getting back to more contemporary times, what was in the current issue of the magazine? In Week in China’s cover story we profiled the return of China's “Mr Internet”: Edward Tian played a vital early role in enabling China to join the worldwide web in the mid-nineties and later became boss of Netcom (now part of 5G giant Unicom). His listing of his firm AsiaInfo Security this month on the STAR Market in Shanghai signals an interesting second act for Tian – this time he wants to play 'defense' and intends to create the 'Alibaba-Tencent-Bytedance' of cybersecurity, a booming new priority area for Beijing that could be worth Rmb250bn annually by next year. With worsening Sino-US ties key figures in the Chinese leadership now view cybersecurity as a strategic industry, meaning Tian can expect strong state backing. To read more about his fascinating background and his current business click here.
Another week, another story about electric vehicles (EVs). This time we looked at Midea’s bold gameplan to be a key player in the EV supply chain, diversifying out of home appliances – but capitalising on the industrial robotics expertise it acquired when it bought Germany’s Kuka. Our article ‘Growth vehicle’ analyses the Guangdong firm’s ambitions. Click here to read.
Investor will remember the rapid rise and fall of Chinese Starbucks challenger Luckin Coffee. But is trouble also brewing over the growth trajectory of its peer in the tea business, Heytea – a chain with 865 outlets across China. Our article ‘Bubble tea’ looks at this unicorn firm (ranked 15th on our Top 50 Unicorns ranking, see here) and why rumours of layoffs have spooked the market. Click here to read.
We had a few stories in this issue too from Beijing’s Winter Olympics as it entered its last week. On the commercial side, the hottest consumer item in China was the mascot Bing Dwen Dwen – merchandise featuring the panda had sold out throughout the country and was selling for crazy multiples on websites. We also reported on how payments giant and longtime OIympic sponsor Visa had to look on as Beijing used the Olympiad to trial usage of its digital yuan (or e-CNY). Finally, we compared and contrasted why a Chinese-American skater was derided by Chinese fans while a Japanese one was embraced as a hero (see photo below).
We also reported on one of the most horrific social stories to emerge from China in quite a while, as netizens expressed their outrage over a chained-up wife in Xuzhou. Read this story in full here. It's hard summarise just how big an impact this human trafficking story has had in China, on city officials in Xuzhou and those involved.
What else have I been reading in publications besides our own? A warning: all of the sources (with clickable links) that I am about to highlight have paywalls…
The major global news story at the moment is Ukraine and the activities of Russian troops on its border. The Financial Times assesses the Chinese attitude and argues that while Beijing sees Moscow as an ally against Washington, its own interest may not be served by a full Russian invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile UK magazine The Spectator penned a long article about the growing bond between Beijing and Moscow and what it means for policymakers in Europe and the US.
Again in the FT, an interesting analysis of China’s struggles in the semiconductor industry – this time in terms of being able to make the chips required by EVs (yep, those again). As we have pointed out in many of our past articles, the challenge China faces is in actually manufacturing the semiconductors, not in designing them. In fact, the the China Semiconductor Industry Association released data last week that 2,810 Chinese chip design companies were in operation by the end of 2021. That was up 27% on 2020.
A less welcome official number for the Chinese economy was reported by Reuters. Shipments of smartphones in China plunged 18.2% in January year-on-year to 32.4 million (that was also slightly down from December’s figure of 32.7 million). “Handset brands are currently experiencing production issues due to a global computer chip shortage,” Reuters pointed out.
A couple of other Winter Olympics articles caught my attention. As the Games came to a close a nice overview was penned by the South China Morning Post. There was also a well researched article by the Wall Street Journal on the close connection between China’s figure skating prowess and the city of Harbin. There’s a wonderful description of the country’s first figure skating pair Luan Bo and Yao Bin mastering lifts “by having Luan stand on a windowsill while Yao experimented”.
And following all the coverage of the anniversary of Nixon’s trip to China (see last week’s newsletter or this article from the most recent issue of Week in China) the SCMP carried this insightful interview with Winston Lord, who was in the room when Mao Zedong met President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger in February 1972.
Finally, this week’s quiz. I have selected a novel about China that was published by a British author only a couple of years after Bertrand Russell released The Problem of China. Named after a line from a Shelley sonnet, the novel takes place against the backdrop of a cholera epidemic in China. To get an idea of the distinctive style of its well-known author, consider this description: “ ‘She paints a little and sometimes she writes a poem. But she mostly sits. She smokes, but only in moderation, which is fortunate, since one of my duties is to prevent the traffic in opium’.”
Message me on Linkedin with the name of the novelist and the novel’s title and I’ll post the first THREE to get it right a copy of our book An A-Z of Chinese History.
Managing Director at FGS Global
1yA timely reminder of Russell's assessment and prediction of China over 100 years ago.
Banking and Financial Advisor | Governance Risks & Compliance | MBA Cybersecurity | Crypto-Assets expertise | Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)
1yGreat insight Steven.
Journalist & Researcher
1yTake on Bertrand Russel is very enlightening indeed ! I thought Henry Kissinger was the best European mind on China. No more so. Russell precedes Kissinger . As Russel predicted, China has already emerged as the second greatest power in the world .
Treasurer at Kontiki Cultural Women Empowerment,
Very Insightful Steven, thanks for sharing the stories.
Excellent Steven